Barua claims son abducted in Dhaka

In an emailed statement to media houses today Paresh Barua, the Ulfa commander-in-chief, claimed his teenaged son has been abducted and held hostage in a bid to bully him into surrendering. He did not specify who kidnapped his son and from where. HT reports.

Paresh Barua, military chief of the United Liberation Front of Asom, claimed in an email on Thursday that his teenaged son Arindam, alias Akash Khan, had been kidnapped from Dhaka this week.

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While Barua — who lived in Dhaka from 1990 to 2008 — is known as Kamrujjaman Khan in Bangladesh, his wife Bobby Hazarika has the Bangladeshi identity of Sufia Begum and daughter Baby goes by the name of Tehsim Khan.

Intelligence officials said although Barua later pitched his camp in northern Myanmar, near the border with southern China's Yunan province, his wife and kids stayed in Bangladesh.

Barua (53) is the last of the Ulfa heavyweights refusing to join the peace process, although Ulfa chairman Arabinda Rajkhowa, and other leaders surrendered after being hounded out of Bangladesh in 2009.

He claimed his son had been held hostage to "force us to surrender and dilute our ideology". "No one can make me or my family weak by holding my son hostage. We would rather sacrifice than climb down."

Meanwhile, the Bangladesh high commissioner to India, Tariq Ahmad Karim, told newsmen on Thursday that he had no information about the abduction. Karim, who met home minister P Chidambaram, said they discussed cooperation between the countries in different areas.

In an earlier email sent just after Rajkhowa's surrender, Barua said, "They (Rajkhowa and the others) are history for the outfit." Assam CM Tarun Gogoi expressed the hope that Barua would also join the mainstream. "But we cannot wait forever."

History sheet